Some say that every city has its own scent. I do not know what the scent Istanbul would be, but lately it seems the whole city has been obsessed with scents. The ancient practice of creating pleasant perfumes dates back thousands of years and is still going strong today. Just like the film "Perfume," this magical world has fascinated people from every era.
One recent perfume event is the very special exhibition "The Art of Scent 1889-2012" that opened last week. The New York Times perfume critic and founder of the Olfactory Art department in Museum of Arts and Design New York, curator Chandler Burr's exhibition is now on display in Istanbul at ISTANBUL'74. The exhibition, which was first on display in the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and treats scent like art, will be in the gallery of ISTANBUL'74 in Teşvikiye until April 14. Visitors set out to discover if scent can be art at the exhibition that offers up 12 famous scents, including Ernest Beaux's Chanel No. 5, Aime Guerlain's Jicky, Bernard Chant's Aromatics Elixir and Olivier Cresp's Light Blue.
Chandler Burr, who came to Istanbul for the exhibition, is a master of scents. He created the position of perfume critic for New York Times in 2006 and wrote in the same newspaper until 2010. With two books on scent, "The Emperor of Scent" and "The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris & New York," Burr wrote his second book based on his New Yorker article "The Scent of the Nile." Chandler Burr founded the Department of Scent Art (DSA) in Museum of Arts and Design in New York in 2010. The first exhibition of the department is "The Art of Scent 1889-2012." He curated the "Hyper-Natural: Scent from Design to Art" exhibition in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 2014. Moreover, Burr has organized scent dinners in different countries and has worked with renowned chefs like Lea Linster, Daniel Boulud, Vito Mollica and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
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Another perfume-related thing that caught my attention this week was MG International Fragrance Company. With its plant in Gebze, MG's facilities could easily be compared to a five-star hotel and could be considered the fragrance empire of Turkey. This firm provides fragrances for many cosmetics produced in Turkey.
With its perfume museum featuring antique bottles, perfume workshops in which you can make your own perfume and its library full of perfume-related books, it feels more like a perfume university than a factory. There is also a private hotel, indoor swimming pool and gym for its staff and for guests from abroad, as well as a research and development center.
MG International Fragrance Company is also very big in exports. It sells fragrances worldwide, with the majority of its business conducted in Middle Eastern countries. MG not only produces but also teaches scent culture. The workshops they organize throughout the year are really great. Last week, I attended one with the corporate communication manager of the brand, Duygu Beşbıçak. It was pretty useful. You learn scent notes, how the limbic system works, etc. The types of fragrance, fragrance production and much more are described in these workshops. When I saw the number of people participating in these workshops I realized how widespread the obsession with perfume in Turkey really is. Thanks to these workshops, scent culture continues to spread more and more. I congratulate MG International Fragrance Company, which has also identified its brand with the motto "Smell Your Soul," for its well-rounded success.
